October 21, 2002

Whippersnappers

I think I am getting old. I see all these high school kids with letterman jackets and nice cars and I think to myself young punks, which is the generational equivalent of whippersnappers.

My wife and I were going to church one day (and by church I mean Wal-Mart) and we were waiting for a woman to back out of a parking space when these three teenage guys pulled right up and acting like they were going to cut us off and take the space. Their windows were down and I could hear them joking around about cutting us off. My wife and I yelled at them in some primitive language and they drove off laughing. We parked and walked inside, where we stopped to talk to a local newspaper salesguy (it is cheaper to get all week than to just get Sunday. Why? Because we also own the recycling company).

So I'm sitting there waiting right inside the automatic door and the three teenagers are walking from across the parking lot and they see me. We have a few dozen seconds of all of us acting like we aren't looking at each other and then they walk through the door. I look up and see that they are scared out of their minds, which suprises me.

From their point of view they think that I have been waiting for them right inside the door, and for some reason they think that I am a threat. This is hilarious to me. I have only been in one fight (6th grade) and am horribly out of shape. I suppose there is an advantage to being 250 pounds, even if at least 30 of that is pure fried chicken. As they pass by I tried to not laugh at the young punks that haven't seen enough of the world to know that I am not who they should be worried about.

October 21, 2002 09:09 PM